Seven Months - Seriously?!

So, here we are again. Another month, another set of giraffe pictures. I love this time of the month! Although, it seems to come too quickly each month. Didn't I just take the six month pictures?

Now, instead of laying next to the giraffe, I prop her to stand

Outfit change!

Jovie is getting smarter all the time. She anticipates things now. When I'm going to get her belly she laughs when I make a certain face or hold my hand above her because she knows both of those things mean I'm gonna get her! She waves her arms and gets excited when we take her out of her stroller at the playground because she knows she gets to swing. And forget about it with the bottle and food. I think she's been able to anticipate those since she was about a month old. :) Well, not really, but she really knows those signs and doesn't mess around when it's time to eat.

Something I really appreciate is how hard Jovie tries! When she's trying to figure something out, or reach something, or learn a new skill, she tries and tries and tries (this could be a factor in her constant spitting up :)). She doesn't give up very easily. And she is so attentive and has a long attention span. She'll sit through reading several books or watch and try something for a long time.

She refuses to be on her belly for more than a couple minutes these days. She would much rather sit up and play and watch what's going on. Sometimes, sitting and reaching lands her on her belly, and I'm thinking that will be the way she learns to crawl. But she's not so interested in crawling or scooting yet. Although, in her sleep she can turn herself an entire 180 degrees and more, rolls around, scoots up and down the crib, kicks those legs, and make all kinds of movements that cause me to wonder if she's going to get up and jump out. Often, I'll wake up in the morning and look at the monitor to find her halfway down the crib and turned around but still on her back, usually. Although, the last couple days she's been a side sleeper.

She's now a great napper (and still a great night sleeper)! She goes down for naps without a fuss now and is on a better schedule. In the last few days, she's been on a new schedule, so we'll see if this one sticks. Instead of three naps of about an hour each per day (which had been her schedule for about a month), she takes two naps - one late-morning and one mid-afternoon. The late morning nap is about 90 minutes - two hours, and the late afternoon nap varies a lot. She's been sleeping in in the morning, too. She'll wake up around 7/7:30 and instead of calling for us to get her, she lays and plays quietly for about ten minutes, then goes back to sleep until 8:30 or 9. This along with the two-nap schedule has put her on a three meal per day plus night-time bottle schedule. What a big girl!

One of my new favorite things is that she hugs me while I'm singing to her before she sleeps. She'll bury her head on my shoulder and put one arm around my shoulder and the other around my neck. So sweet! And waking her up from her nap is our favorite thing! She grins and grins and stretches and is generally thrilled to see you.

And, she loves to eat! She's had all kinds of food now: Sweet potatoes, potatoes, peas, pears, apples, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, prunes. Still working on those teeth (been teething for months now!), so not really chewing yet, but she is starting to drink out of a sippee cup now and then. But she does not like water. At all. Oh well, I'm determined to keep trying.

Jovie is such a happy baby and smiles and grins so easily. The giggles are becoming a bit more frequent too. There are a couple times when she's very serious and it's tough to get her to smile: 1) When she's eating (shades of Daddy) and 2) in her stroller (too busy watching everything). Although, these days, now that she sits facing forward, I sometimes hear her singing and chattering away. Especially when the wind blows on her.

Speaking of singing, Jovie LOVES to sing. She sings more than she chatters. In the car, sometimes she'll sing at the top of her lungs. Almost every time I'm trying to get another thing done at home, I turn on the music and almost all fussiness stops. Jovie loves music like her Daddy (although their tastes in music are a bit different right now).

Jovie's very expressive and chatters away with different intonations. However, she's not really into making consonant sounds. Our theory: Her mouth hangs open a lot (shades of Mommy), and so it's natural to make vowel sounds. She never closes her mouth, so she doesn't have a starting place to make consonant sounds. :)

And don't forget about kisses. Jovie LOVES to give kisses (but not so much with Daddy's beard). We are trying to work on blowing kisses. The new skill is that she'll periodically give high fives. In typical Jovie fashion, she has abandoned waving. As I mentioned in an earlier post, she masters a skill and then abandons it, and we rarely see it again.

Because of the super warm weather, the cherry blossoms have bloomed super early. So, this evening after work, we took Jovie to see the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin and Hains Point. It was a beautiful evening and we had lots of fun together, walking around, feeling the breeze and smelling the blossoms. Fighting the crowd wasn't so bad on a Monday evening. :)

And she was cute as a button!

Happy seven month birthday, Jovie!!